Descriptive tasting
The most common sensory test: the panel describes a sample's profile on a 0-10 scale and you get a spider chart, ANOVA table, and per-attribute aggregates.
What it is
Descriptive tasting is the most common sensory test and the foundation of a quantitative profile. The panel describes the sensory profile of each sample by rating a list of attributes on a 0-10 scale. The result is not a "like / dislike" but a measurable portrait of the product: how much bitterness, how much acidity, which aromatic notes, what texture.
It follows the quantitative descriptive analysis methodology (ISO 13299 / QDA) and produces two outputs: the profile spider chart and the aggregates table with ANOVA and Tukey letters.
Access path
- URL:
https://app.areacacao.com/sensory-analysis/evaluations/new?tipo=descriptiva&step=muestras - How to get there: in the sidebar, under Sensory analysis, click the Descriptive tasting shortcut.
Pro plan and above.
The sidebar shortcut
Descriptive tasting is not a new screen: it is a shortcut to the tasting creation wizard. When you click it, the wizard opens with the test type Descriptive tasting already preselected and goes straight to the Product and samples step, saving you the first step.
From there, the flow is the same wizard as always: you configure samples, attribute protocol, panel, logistics, and launch. The step-by-step detail is in Create a tasting.
If you prefer another test, you can change the type from the wizard itself. The shortcut is just a quick way to start with the most common test.
The vocabulary of descriptive tasting: attributes
In sensory analysis, what describes a sample are its attributes: each axis of the profile (for example, bitterness, acidity, fruity, astringency, aftertaste) that the panel rates from 0 to 10. The attributes are defined by the protocol you choose in the wizard and are organized by families (Base, Aromatics, Defects, Mouthfeel, Textures, Other).
Don't confuse the attributes of descriptive tasting with the "primary flavor", "secondary flavor", or "accent" concepts from the Filling Formulator: they are different areas of AreaCacao. In sensory analysis the result is always expressed in quantified attributes (0-10 scale), not in a recipe's flavor hierarchy.
What you get when you close the tasting
When you close the tasting and lock the results, the Results section delivers:
- The spider chart (sensory profile): one polygon per sample that overlays up to 6 samples and marks with an asterisk the attributes with a significant difference.
- The results table: mean ± standard deviation per attribute and sample, with an ANOVA column and Tukey letters to see which samples truly differ.
When to use it
- Build the reference profile of a product or an origin.
- Compare batches or variants attribute by attribute, with statistical backing.
- Generate the technical material of a dossier for a HoReCa client or an audit.